2007/2008 ski season recap in 82 pictures - easily the best season in this history of teendrama!

Hi and welcome to the recap I promised myself I'd get up on teendrama before I left for Sweden: 2007/2008 Ski Season Recap! Normally, I'd do this weekend-by -weekend but I was just so lazy / distracted this winter that I didn't get around to it, which is a huge shame since this was such a super sick season all around. Quick overview before we jump into things (and this is a loooong one) - 30 days, two *big* dumps in VT (15" each?) and *three trips of west* - Jackson Hole, Beaver Creek, Snowmass/Aspen - plus of course Sink or Stoopid Skim (sank, sorry for the spoiler, but you already knew that was coming). Anyway, ready? (oh, this pic? Mount Snow, somewhere around mid-season me thinks).

Early season wasn't looking so hot. Not sure when I took this (early January?) but I think we were all pretty sure this would be a classic VT season - snow, then thaw, snow then thaw, snow then thaw. Accumulation ruined by rain.

Januarys are for black out weekends (MLK), so we hit up Stratton for freeeeeeeee courtesy of my pal Sue (she's the one who was so good to us at the Google Ski Trip!). Thanks Sue! (and hope I don't get you in trouble for writing about this! :)

Stratton + holiday weekend + gondola = lines. McD looks less then thrilled, but if I remember correctly this was a pretty sick day. The parks are so super nice at Stratton (Mount Snow, please take note).

Finally a SXSW 2008 recap! - Wedding crashing, lobby swimming, and five 4am nights worth of free drinks (oh and also there were some internet panels)

Hey, welcome to Part 2 of my catching up before I take off for Sweden (!!). With any luck Part 3 - ski season recap! - should be up over the weekend (what, you missed Part 1? But that what's Mom's 60th bday!) Anyway, so let's finally get this SXSW recap out of the way (er, from first week in March!)

So, SXSW = South by Southwest, the interactive + film + music conference festival that's held down in Austin, TX every Spring. Alex and I went down on the Google dime in 2006 and it was amazing (esp since dodgeball was the Next Big Thing at the time). We went down again in 2007, though that was when me + Alex were brawling with Google over their neglect of dodgeball (all while Twitter was blowing up as the Next Big Thing). So 2008... I wasn't really too hot on the idea of going down. I'm kind of in-between-jobs and in-between-projects and just wasn't really that fired up for it. Then again, everyone in the world was headed to Austin... Alex, Karen, Kevin.K, Harry.H, Danny Denver and just about everyone I know from ITP whose now out in SF.

With about 2 days before the conference, Alex and Kevin start giving me for shit for not planning on coming. I did't have a plane ticket, I did't have a hotel (er, impossible to find even 2 months before the festival) and I didn't have a badge ($500!). I started IMing with Karen about maaaayyybbbee coming down - secret surprise style, which is when Karen said I could crash in their hotel for a night. And then Danny Denver turned out to have an extra place to crash. And then I started looking at plane tix and realized I had a Jet Blue voucher. And then heard that my buddy Ryan who was running a panel on Location Aware Gaming had a open spot to fill (poor Slavin had pneumonia) which would score me a freebee speaker's badge. So, early Friday afternoon - while everyone was already en route to Austin - I scrapped together my five-days-in-Austin itinerary, packed my lil' green backpack and headed to JFK. I text'ed Karen to tell her know that I managed to scam my way down and to try to keep all the ITP kids out late enough so I could make a secret surprise entrance... masterplan was to get in around 10:30p, roll into downtown Austin around 11p. Woo-hooo!

... and they I get to JFK and realize that Jet Blue has crushed my dreams yet again. My 8:45 flight delayed 2+ hours - pushing my 12am arrival time, back to around 3am.

Long story short, I told KB to keep everyone out till midnight. She knew I was super delayed and kept people out as late as possible. By the time I rolled up to the SXSW's opening night after-party (er, 3:55am) there were no more beers, no more good times, and Alex and Ron and Manlio and Danny and KB (good bless them) were all Slurry McCrunkedaLot. Still a successful late night reunion!

... just enough time for one of these...

... before making the trek over the bridge...

... to crash with Alex and Karen in their loooovveee suite. And goodnight!

Hello Saturday! The panel I fandangled myself onto ("You Are Here, Gaming and Geolocation") was one of the very first panels of the conference. Bad because the panel isn't as crowded as it would be if it was in the afternoon, good because at least you get it out of the way, leaving you stress free for the rest of the festival.

Why hello there! This is my first attempt in writing a teendrama recap in, um, forever. I got this trip to Sweden with Mr. Eric Freid all planned up in about 8 days from now and I really want to catch up on the tdrama before I take off... hence the 3 big posts this week (Mom's 60th, ski season recap, SXSW). A little teendrama philosophy real quick: I keep this site as kind of a scrapbook for myself and friends and when I fall far behind (e.g. now) it's almost like 6 months worth of good times just goes unnoticed. Think of the stuff I flaked on this past year: Mike + Jos' wedding, bday #31, SXSW 07, PICNIC @ Amsterdam, World Series, etc. I always find myself wanting to refer back to these memories as teendrama posts and its kind of a bummer realizing I never got around to writing a recap (disclaimer: last year is a weird case as its not just me being lazy w/ teendrama, instead I lost 9 out of 12 months of photos to one stolen laptop and one fried laptop). So, anyway, let's catch up!

Hey Mom, happy 60th birthday! (er, this was back in March, btw). My dad - notorious for messing up with big surprises for my Mom - wanted to surprise her with a huge surprise bday party. He had me and JJ act like we weren't going to come home for Mom's bday (using McD's St. Paddy's party as a cover and the old "but we'll be back next weekend for Easter!" excuse) but then managed to sneak home on Saturday to set up the *bowling alley* he rented out for the big bday surprise!

Dad was stressing about the whole thing - "make sure there's enough drinks and food and make sure everyone parks in the back", etc. We did our bestest, even making a little makeshift "No Parking" sign so Dad could roll right up to the front without having driving by everyone else's cars. Slick!

(JJ's first album cover? "No Parking in the Zone of Love")

So here's the big moment of surprise - I think about 60 people where there, bartender + fully catered and the whole thing. Good job, Dad!

Hey hey - I finally have all three rounds of recaps from our travels through Thailand / Malaysia / Singapore pics online. I didn't expect that to take, er, almost a month and a half (300 pics?!) but with any luck now we can get back to our regularly scheduled teendrama updates (Jackson Hole! VT! Beaver Creek! Snowmass!)

Hello again! And welcome to the 3rd (and final!) installment of me & Rob's trek trek through Thailand and Malaysia (bonus: Singapore!). When we last left off (part 2!), me and Lt. Moore we're lounging on a luxury bus from Georgetown, Penang en route to Kuala Lumpur. Have you been paying attention? If so, you'd remember that the whole reason for this trip in the first place was to get down to KL so we could spend a few days visiting Rob's sister (she's a school teacher in KL).

Well after 4 days in Bangkok, 2 in Krabi, 1 in Railay and 1 night in Penang, we finally made to Kuala Lumpor (capital of Malaysia, btw). We rolled in off the luxury bus around 7pm, dialed up Pam the cellie and took the most expensive cab ever to meet her and Darren (her husband!) down at the Hard Rock (happy hour!).

A few drinks at the Hard Rock and then off to Pam and Darren's favorite Mexican hangout. Aw, what a cute four-way reunion pic (Rob, get some!).

Followed by drinks, pirated DVD shopping and drunk dialing our families back while at the outdoor plaza up the street. (Mr. Moore, I *swear* it was Pam's idea!)

Day 2: Kuala Lumpur was like a vacation within a vacation for us. For the past, what?, 8 days Rob and I were running around, map and notes in hand, trying to fill our days with as many sightseey things as possible all while hustling our way from one city to the next.

But now we were crashing at Pam and Darren's place in KL (in Bukit Antarbangsa - about a 20 min drive from downtown) which means unheard of luxuries: Our own rooms! Hot showers! Free water! Laundry! And this awesome view overlooking the suburban valley below. So super nice.

And Pam and Darren were nice enough to have planned a few things for us to do while in KL. First up...

Hello! And welcome to Part 2 of our adventures through Thailand and Malaysia! Sorry about the two week month delay (I'm busy!) but I believe when we last left, me and Rob had just finished up 3 days in Bangkok (Wat Po! Muay Thai! Snake Farm! - recap here) - and we were on our way to Railay in Southern Thailand for New Years. So, ready for Part 2?

[recap from part 1] :: So remember, the "zero itinerary" part of this story? Our only plans were to have a rad New Years and then somehow make it back to Bangkok for our flight to Kuala Lumpur on the 2nd? Well, we currently have a one-way flight to the beautiful beaches of Krabi (ha!) and currently no way of getting back to Bangkok. While at the airport, we chatted up some travel agent folk in search of flights back... nothing from Krabi (etc) to Bangkok till at least January 3rd. Which leaves us with a few sketchy options: (a) try to find a 10 hour train ride back to Bangkok, (b) try to find a 15 hour bus / pickup truck ride back or (c) find someway to skip the flight and cross over into Malaysia by heading through the dodgy areas of southern Thailand (click it!).

Soooo we caught our 7pm flight from Bangkok -> Krabi. Last two open seats on the plane means we get to sit in the last row (aka the seats that don't recline). As an added bonus, I got to sit next to The Huge Guy. Upon landing, we took a quick cab ride to downtown Krabi (aka "Krabi Town" according to Lt. Rob).

Though the magic of The Book (Lonely Planet Thailand, remember?) we booked a room ahead of time at the awesome-sounding KL Mansion. Rolled in around 10pm or so..

I don't so much heart these combo toilet + shower rooms. Ah, the sweet luxury of Krabi Town. Combo bathroom + shower: bathroom is wet and dirty when you want to pee, shower feels dirty cause you just pooped in the same 3x3 space.

Now remember, we kind of came to Krabi on a whim. We were looking for some New Years plans, couldn't book any plane tickets to any of the "destination" islands and when the travel agent was like, "I can get you to Krabi" we said "Sure!" having no idea what we were getting ourselves into (in fact, the only reason Krabi sounded familiar at all was because Marc.J put it on his "Hey go here and check it out" list - I think as a rock climbing destination?).

Anyway, we rolled in expecting lush beaches and a bunch of tourists hanging around getting all fired up for New Years... instead we found a pretty dumpy port town, no beaches in sight, no tourists anywhere. This place was dead.

Well, except for this carnival going on literally across the street from our hotel. Krabi seems pretty tiny - maybe a 10 min walk from our hotel (which looked like it may be on the outskirts) to the other side of town. We took a lap around to get our bearings (er, try to find a beach) and when we came up empty, hit up the carnival (sketchy rides, people selling chocolate-covered bugs, some pop-the-balloon game, and a lots of vendors selling everything from camo shirts of tube socks to videos of people on superbikes doing tricks - rad!)

Hey - I just upgraded my version of Movable Type (the software I use to make this stoopid blog). Anyway, during the upgrade I found this old draft of a post - some teendrama entry I wrote that never made it online. So here goes... (I have no idea what these pics even look like - won't see till I post them! The excitement!

ps: this is from July 7, 2005... back in the glory days!
ps2: just took a look. kind of boring. wah!

Thursday is for open bars

I took some time off from the Lower East Side last night to explore a world of open bars with Randy and Grellan.

Stop #1: Details magazine + Absolut party at Gypsy Tea. Lots of editorial assistants queueing up for free drinks. We braved three trips to the bar and then left with our gift bags.

Stop #2: Pizza somewhere around 26th and 7th. I ditched my gift bag on the street after realizing it didn't contain any free liquor samples. Randy gave his to the guy making the pizza. I'm sure Grellan is wearing his new Absolut Summer shirt while reading his complimentary copy of Details as I type this up.

Stop #3: Jenn and Andrea invite us to a new club opening on 27th and 10th (called "Home"). Not really my scene, but hey, free drinks. Girls = VIP = use their secret powers to sneak us in with sneakers on.

I opted for the open bar special (Budweiser bottles) over the $300 bottle of gin. (Though don't get me wrong, I love the bottle service).

We left around 1am or so. Maybe a little earlier. Malcolm Gladwell was sitting behind us (read: best celebrity sighting ever). I took this pic on the way out. Fancy (well, not really).

I've been out in Jackson Hole, WY for the past few days with McD + Uff + Xtian. We're headed back to NYC this afteroon (flight gets in around midnight).

Three days out here = not enough and just enough at the same time. "Not enough" since there's so much of the mountain we haven't explored (Hogart's + backcountry + expert chutes) and "just enough" since my legs (and arms, back, shoulders, etc) are so sore I can barely get out of this hotel bed.

We (er, I) came out here specifically to try to ski Corbet's Couloir. We scoped it on Day 2 and backed out on the advice of a ski patroller ("too late in the day") and then came back first thing in the morning on Day 3 and it was closed (too much snow = avalanche). Kind of bummed that we didn't get a chance (next year!), but it snowed about 10 inches on Friday night giving us one of the best days we've ever skied yesterday (Sat, Day 3).

There's lots of pics (and Xtian is working on editing up the video). Take a look at Flickr for now...